From rigs to lifes riches

After 15 years tending to Britains biggest parish, the North Sea, the Rev Angus Smith plans a sedate retirement, writes Nick Thorpe

Zipping himself into a survival suit for another vertigo- inducing helicopter commute, there must be times when the Rev Angus Smith wonders if he couldn’t have chosen an easier parish. It’s not as if he lacked the opportunity: there was an idyllic offer of a church in Trinidad back in the 1970s. Or the cosy Argyll patch he was about to take up 14 years ago when somebody first mentioned the words “oil chaplain”.

Instead he has spent the mature years of his ministry criss-crossing thousands of miles of storm-lashed ocean to tend his scattered flock on 120 North Sea installations. He’s seen tragedy, technological triumph and some of the foulest weather imaginable. Yet poised on the edge of retirement at the age of 69, Smith looks back on his turbulent priesthood with almost lyrical affection.

“I’ve loved this job immensely,” says the former army chaplain from Lewis, who will